Slow cookers, also known as electric crock pots, have gained popularity in recent years spurred in part by a growing return to home-cooking that is hampered by busy lifestyles. Traditional slow cookers are well known in the art to provide the convenience of placing uncooked ingredients in the cooking vessel, setting the temperature and cook time, and forgetting it until you return home from work later in the day.
Recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations have added a requirement that food in a slow cooker must reach 50° C. within two hours of operation in order to prevent bacterial growth in the uncooked food. Some attempts in the art aimed at meeting this requirement include increasing the heating power of the slow cooker. Attempts such as this are ineffective solutions because, counter to the intent and object of using a slow cooker, this increase in power causes the food to overcook resulting in food that is tough, dry, and undesirable.
In light of this safety-related FDA regulation, there exists a need in the art for a slow cooker apparatus, system and related method that is adapted to meet the safety requirement to prevent bacteria growth, but also will not overcook or dry out the food. Therefore, it would be desirable to have a slow cooker system and related method that heats the food to the required safe temperature within the specified time, and then changes the power driving the heating element to a lower wattage which will not overcook the food.
While certain aspects of conventional technologies have been discussed to facilitate disclosure of the invention, Applicant in no way disclaims these technical aspects, and it is contemplated that the claimed invention may encompass one or more of the conventional technical aspects discussed herein.
In this specification where a document, act, or item of knowledge is referred to or discussed, this reference or discussion is not an admission that the document, act, or item of knowledge or any combination thereof was at the priority date, publicly available, known to the public, part of common general knowledge, or otherwise constitutes prior art under the applicable statutory provision; or is known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which this specification is concerned.